My cousin had been telling me to visit Missoula for years.
For years, I found reasons not to.
Work. Life. Costs. Responsibilities. The usual excuses.
The truth is, there was always a part of me that wanted to hit the road and see the country. That idea had been sitting in the back of my mind since 1988, when I spent six weeks driving across the United States after graduating from college. Like a lot of great trips, it ended with me promising myself that someday I’d do something like that again.
Someday took close to thirty-five years.
In 2021, I finally decided to stop talking about it.
I bought a Dodge Caravan, converted it into a simple camper, and started taking test trips. Long weekends here and there. Enough to learn what worked, what didn’t, and whether life on the road was something I could actually do.
As I tested the van, one destination kept finding its way into my mind.
Missoula.
My cousin lived there and had been telling me to visit for years. If I was really going to try this van-life thing, driving from New England to Montana felt like a pretty good test.
So Missoula became the goal.
I left Portland, Maine with a rough plan to spend three months on the road and eventually make my way to Montana.
My strategy was simple.
Get west.
Fast.
If I wanted to visit places east of the Mississippi River, I could do that anytime. Those places weren’t going anywhere. The West felt different. The West felt like the adventure.
So I drove.
Two nights after leaving New England, I found myself standing at the Field of Dreams in Iowa.
That was my marker.
The place where I would finally allow myself to slow down.
I remember it being a beautiful afternoon. I walked out into the outfield, laid down in the grass, looked up at the sky, and exhaled.
After years of imagining a trip like this, I was finally doing it.
From there, the pace changed.
I stopped worrying about miles and started paying attention to the places I was passing through.
Eventually, I arrived in Missoula.
I was supposed to stay a couple of weeks with my cousins.
Like most good travel plans, it quickly became something else.
I spent my days exploring town, visiting breweries, playing disc golf, wandering wherever curiosity pointed me, and getting a feel for a city that seemed to fit naturally between mountains, music, and outdoor adventure.
One night I signed up for an open mic.
I hate playing in front of people.
That’s actually one of the reasons I sign up for open mics. Every time I do one, I’m hoping to conquer that fear just a little bit.
I was nervous.
My cousin came along for support, and somehow I survived.
Over the next couple of weeks, I started falling into a routine. Not a tourist routine. A life routine.
I found a local bar I liked and kept returning. I’d shoot pool, talk with whoever happened to be there, and before long I started recognizing familiar faces. Somehow, a group of strangers slowly became friends.
Then came my favorite Missoula memory.
On my last day in town, my cousin and I were walking through the farmers market when someone passed by and said:
“Hi Martin. Have a safe trip.”
My cousin started laughing.
I’d only been in Missoula for a couple of weeks.
Somehow, someone knew my name.
The funny thing is that I don’t even remember who it was.
I knew them from the bar. We’d talked a few times. I’ve been back to Missoula several times since then and never ran into them again.
But that’s not really the point.
The point is that for the first time, travel didn’t feel like a vacation.
It didn’t even feel like a trip.
It felt like living.
Looking back now, Missoula wasn’t the most dramatic stop I made during my years on the road. It wasn’t the most remote place, the strangest place, or even necessarily the most beautiful.
But it might have been the most important.
It was the place where I finally answered a question I’d been asking myself for decades.
Could I really do this?
Could I leave home, head out into the country, and build a life around curiosity, exploration, and the freedom to see what was around the next bend?
Missoula gave me my answer.
Yes.
A few years later, that answer would take me to 49 states, countless small towns, deserts, mountains, festivals, breweries, open mic nights, and more adventures than I ever could have imagined.
But it started here.
My cousin had spent years telling me to visit Montana.
Looking back, I’m glad I finally listened.
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